Primer Nivel S.A., the company behind My.co, won an auction for the heavily-contested top level domain name last year. Many were surprised when the company beat Google and a handful of other new TLD companies in the auction.

On April 29, 2016, Primer Nivel assigned its contract with ICANN for .blog to Knock Knock WHOIS There, LLC, which is an affiliate with WordPress. (Clever company name!) Automattic partnered with Primer Nivel prior to the auction.

WordPress’ backing will be huge for this domain name and new top level domain names in general.

It’s obviously a very good fit and also logical that a company would go after the tld that defines what they do. Automattic might also selectively sell .blog domains to industry leaders assuming there’s interest. Although I can see .news possibly being a strong competitor.